The beat goes on (and on)

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This week, Australian music's Hall of Fame awards became
a stand-alone ceremony for the first time. But do we really need
such an event? By Brian Courtis.

We knew the words, the labels, the B-sides, the songwriters and
how high those hits soared in the charts. Their music was clear,
well-defined, raw and memorable, and if we struck three minutes of
them before they twirled off the jukebox turntable or faded into
the radio DJ's trans-Pacific dream talk then we knew we had been
blessed. Music, like everything else, spoke clearly back then.

We collected albums, went to live stage shows where we rocked,
bopped, stomped and deafened ourselves with sounds we knew and
performers we could see without the aid of gigantic video screens a
kilometre away. We shared - not the pounding dance electronics
that, in a desert of indistinguishable beige sound demands gallons
of bottled water to keep us partying, but real live musos with
instruments and songs that didn't need multi-tracking,
computerising, digitising or focus-grouping.

It's grumpy old rocker talk, sure, but, as we shuffle our way
through our iPod playlists, wondering what that piece of
inoffensive, easily digestible, and mildly calming piece of MP3
world music was in between the tracks by Dido, Travis, Kylie and
Coldplay, it is hard not to think something is missing now, that
something or someone is turning the same old predictable sound
around in perpetual rotation.

Is this why, perhaps, that when it comes to popular music,
television seems trapped in rock'n'roll nostalgia or other blasts
from the past?

Sure, there are the video-clip and country channels on pay TV,
the talent-quest idols, the occasional popular, classical music,
blues or jazz program, but very few of these are dedicated to the
new, the experimental, or some shared sense of musical
progression.

Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Phil Collins and Paul
McCartney turn up time and again. REM, Annie Lennox and U2 are
starting to slip into the same pattern. Robbie Williams will be
next. Rock used to move forward with TV's help, but even hip-hop
and the music of the young "new" bands has a manufactured feel. For
Blur, Oasis or Coldplay, read the Beatles or Stones. Watch the Live
8 juggernaut and you'll see much of it was dominated by
pensioners.

Nostalgia, of course, is safe, cosy, static. All the things
rock'n'roll should not be. But it's no wonder that the musical
conservatives of television and the industry itself are most happy
producing award programs, shows that hand out gongs for "product"
or talent that has already proved itself.

For TV, it is like preaching again to the converted. For the
increasingly insecure recording industry bosses, it is reassurance
that, despite the dilemmas of technology and an increasingly
impatient audience, they're still in charge. Top 10s still count.
The club still exists. Musos come together in solidarity,
celebrating individuality en masse. It is here in nostalgia that
you get the circling of the wagons.

Among the more curious additions to these prize-giving nights
has been the increasing acceptance of the "hall of fame" concept, a
sort of recognition that seems to suggest museums packed with
stuffed racehorses, baseball bats and portraits of old
knickerbockered New York Yankees, or dusty glass cases crammed with
ancient willow, red leather and the cricketing trivia of a Bradman
or a W.G. Grace.

Although there are such "museums", the music halls of fame have
been allowed to thrive as a virtual corridor of our finest
memories, a list, yet another top 10. At the Logies or ARIAs
(Australian Record Industry Association Awards) they have become a
bonus tribute and presentation or acknowledgment of significant
achievements. They recognise those who have gone beyond the one-hit
wonders.

The ARIAs first began the Hall of Fame tributes back in 1988,
with salutes to Dame Joan Sutherland, Johnny O'Keefe, Slim Dusty,
Col Joye, Vanda & Young and AC/DC - an eclectic group. The
following year it was Dame Nellie Melba and Ross Wilson, while in
1990 Percy Grainger shared the honours with Sherbet. Since then an
induction has been included annually in the music industry awards
presentation show. Olivia Newton John, John Farnham, The Saints,
Little River Band and INXS have been among those honoured.

This year, much like The Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame in the
United States, ARIA is treating it as a separate, stand-alone
event, away from the other music awards. The ARIA Hall Of Fame took
place last Thursday at the Plaza Ballroom of the Regent Theatre in
Melbourne and will be seen nationally on Pay TV's VH1 channel and,
later, on FOX 8.

Top of the bill in this new awards show is 92-year-old country
singer Smoky Dawson. Up there with him will be Renee Geyer, Normie
Rowe and Split Enz, The Easybeats and Hunters & Collectors.

We're not alone in our nods to the recent musical past. Last
November the winners of the first UK Musical Hall Of Fame awards
were announced at the Hackney Empire in London's East End. Among
those honoured were The Beatles, Madonna, U2, Queen and, of course,
The Rolling Stones, still gathering everything but moss. Like the
Aussies, but not the Americans, who do at least have a pop museum
for the fans in Cleveland, Ohio, the Brits have no physical hall of
fame.

But do we really need these music halls of fame? Surely the
memories that come with the sounds of Puccini or Sinatra, Mahler or
Melba, Cold Chisel or Peter Allen should be enough? Perhaps we need
an ARIA Hall of Potential instead, something to stir up a real
sense of originality in both their art and business. It is
needed.

When the golden oldies take another bow up there on television,
we'll enjoy the entertainment. But let's not get stuck in this
nostalgia groove.